Cables and Kudos
"Tell me a story," Joseph Pulitzer would say when he first met someone. With "Mother Earth, Motherboard" (Wired 4.12, page 97), Neal Stephenson answered the late publisher's request. In I-don't-wanna-know-how-many-thousand words, the self-proclaimed Hacker Tourist eloquently rendered a story worth telling. If at first I balked at the idea of reading an article spanning 60-plus pages, its structure, format, and above all writing made for a few very pleasant hours.
Jean-Franois Bertrandcj785@freenet.carleton.ca

I am not a fan of the first-person journalism that so enamors the editors of Wired. The writers tend to tell me more than
I want to know about themselves while I want to read more about the subject or issue they are allegedly writing about. But Neal Stephenson's story was the best magazine article I have read in years, in any publication, period.

I started with low expectations: What's so interesting about some stupid cable? Yeah, it's long; yeah, it's difficult to string the stupid thing; yeah, yeah, yeah, who cares? But Stephenson can write. He made an incredibly long story sing. I stayed up much later than I care to remember to finish it. Thank you for giving a great writer the space he needed to tell a compelling tale.
Matt Carrollm_carroll@globe.com

I subscribed to Wired the day after I read the first issue. Sadly, the magazine has gone downhill from there. But finally - the December issue gave me that original thrill. Maybe it's because I'm sitting in Tokyo reading my FedEx'd copy while I wait for some source bits to move from Cupertino, California, across the Pacific (Mac OS 8 alive and well, thank you very much). Alternately, I've been paying my San Francisco bills via the Web, calling people back at the office, and sending obnoxious email.This lifestyle - hopping on a plane, plopping down in some remote land, plugging in a few boxes, and being there, so close to home that the only difference is where you lay your head - is mind-boggling. I'll go down to Ginza tomorrow and pull some more bits across the ocean, and they'll be automatically transformed from dollars into yen and then into pieces of paper with dead politicians on them, which I'll distribute across Tokyo at an alarming rate. The wiring of the planet makes it possible not only to globe-trot but to globe-trot and be effective. Time zones and network latencies are the only impediments and hell, who sleeps anyhow? If FedEx can figure out how to deliver decent Mexican food, I'm set.

So, "Mother Earth, Motherboard" was a blast. Along with Todd Lappin's article on FedEx ("The Airline of the Internet," Wired 4.12, page 234) it justified my subscription to Wired for the next year.
Dave Smithdavsmith@apple.com

Seeing through the Transparent Society
David Brin paints a chilling picture ("The Transparent Society," Wired 4.12, page 260). But come on. Look, the cops got radar guns; we got radar detectors. What about faith in technology? If Brin can predict
a future of invisible surveillance cameras, let me predict that you'll be able to spend US$49.95 on QVC for something that will make you camera-proof.

Technology is the great equalizer - at least
I think I read that somewhere.Tom Labettitomlabetti@aol.com

Someone should explain to David Brin that in journalism, unlike science fiction, one doesn't get to invent facts to spice up the story.

Brin writes: "John Perry Barlow, Mike Godwin, John Gilmore, and other members of the Electronic Frontier Foundation have been especially indignant, demanding that citizens be armed with unlimited power to conceal their words, actions, and identities."

I don't presume to speak for Barlow and Gilmore, but as far as I'm concerned, this is simply false.
I have never argued, demanded, or suggested that anyone should have such unlimited power. The most extreme proprivacy position Brin can lay at my door is my insistence that individual citizens can be trusted with encryption technologies - a position that at one time appalled Brin, although now that he thinks cryptography doesn't matter, I cannot understand why he bothers to take issue with me at all.

Even a true visionary could not infer from my procrypto position that I think individual privacy should be an unlimited trump card that citizens
can always play against the government or against each other.

My civil liberties work is focused primarily on promoting freedom of speech and inquiry, and my writings about privacy can be understood only in that context. For example, I've written that privacy and anonymity are sometimes necessary to promote freedom of speech and the open society Brin says he wants. The US Supreme Court seems to agree - see the groundbreaking 1950s NAACP v. Alabama case, for example. Nothing I've written, however, resembles the extreme straw-man argument that Brin and Wired put into my mouth.

I would dismiss Brin's comment as an undergraduate-level error were it not for the subsequent remark: "But a few voices out there - Stewart Brand, Nick Arnett, and Bruce Sterling, for instance - have begun pointing out the obvious: that those cameras on every street corner are coming, as surely as the new millennium."

Brand has been a member of the EFF's board of directors just as long as Barlow and Gilmore have. Brin isn't terribly interested in representing the facts - he's far more interested in "proving" that his novel Earth (from which most of his predictions in "The Transparent Society" seem to be taken) is going to turn out to be an accurate prediction of the near future.

Sadly, science fiction is no more about correctly characterizing the future than journalism is about inventing absurd political views and attributing them to your opponents. Brin should spend more time doing research. And the next time he wants to attribute a view to me, he should use an actual quotation. That might keep him honest.
Mike Godwinmnemonic@well.com

I don't demand that citizens be armed with the power to conceal their words. I say that their de facto option to attempt to conceal their words cannot be taken away by government, and that a government attempt to take this away from citizens will lead to more serious social trouble than let
ting them have it.
One of my primary arguments about encryption parallels David Brin's point about cameras: if governments succeed in outlawing crypto, only "the rich, the powerful, police agencies, and a technologically skilled lite" will have privacy. This is worse for society than everyone having privacy.

As Brin shows, encryption provides only minimal privacy protection against surveillance. It does, however, raise the cost of wiretapping - which is too cheap to meter, thanks to digital technology - to
the point that the government can't afford to wiretap big chunks of the population.

If physical surveillance (by no-see-'em cameras that fly into your house) becomes sufficiently cheap, encryption can't prevent mass surveillance. But that'll be the least of our problems. Let's see if encryption can buy us some time while we wrestle with the bigger changes on the horizon.
John Gilmoregnu@toad.com

In a Ribofunk
Two days after reading Paul Di Filippo's "Ribopunk" (Wired 4.11, page 176), I listened to an interview with Andrew Kimbrell (author of The Human Body Shop: The Engineering and Marketing of Life) and learned that the biotech of Di Filippo's sci-fi is already in effect, only it's not occurring for the benefit of cancer patients, as he idealized, but for the new biological marketplace.

In the name of progress and without any ethical vision, corporations are patenting human genes and new life-forms. Transgenic animals have been created by mixing human-growth genes into pigs, salmon, mice, and other animals; these "superspecies" are used for various commercial and research purposes with little or no concern for ecological fuckups. Not to mention that cruelty to laboratory animals has reached a new low!

If this new "sci-fi subgenre" grabbed your attention as it did mine, I highly recommend listening to Kimbrell (interview available from TUC Radio, email tucradio@igc.apc.org) and finding out why one group is calling for a complete moratorium on genetic engineering and the patenting of life. This
is not future fantasy! Brace yourself for some true-life horror stories.
Paul Fyvolenteapaul@sirius.com

Opportunity Lost
Lewis J. Perelman's "Opportunity Cost" (Wired 4.11, page 128) was accurate and to the point. I have been a Mac fan since 1984 and have seen the idiots who run the company make one mistake after another because of an arrogant, xenophobic attitude. I want Apple to succeed just as much as any Mac user. The company's first step is to recognize and learn from its mistakes; this is the one area where Microsoft excels (no pun intended), and where Apple is at the bottom of the heap!
Robert Varipapavaripapa@dca.net

Wired has succumbed - along with the rest of the media - to that boring and predictable pastime: Apple bashing. "Opportunity Cost" shows the
copious ignorance typical of my hardcore PC-using friends.

The claim that the Mac is not used for business is surprising. Most of the publishing industry uses Macs, including Wired. Although Wired is not a traditional business, this article shows the warped perception and stupidity of one.
Jed Borodjborod@aol.com

I've enjoyed Wired for some time. But given the level of inaccuracy and misrepresentation in "Opportunity Cost," I can no longer assume that anything I read in the magazine has been researched or presented honestly.

It's sad and disappointing that Wired has chosen to jump on the mainstream media's Apple-bashing bandwagon. Here's some food for thought while you examine your journalistic integrity:

Apple is the Number Three vendor in the US business market. Thirteen companies are producing or intend to produce desktop systems that run the Mac OS. Apple has a 63 percent share of the US commercial publishing market. Eighty percent of all computers used for color publishing jobs in advertising, graphic design, and prepress printing are Macs. Macintosh is the Number One Web-authoring platform.

Apple is the Number One US computer vendor and the Number Three vendor in Japan. Apple is the most used personal computer brand in Australia.
A Government Computer News survey, published January 8, 1996, found that Apple's System 7.5 came in first overall and led the other operating systems in 9 of the 11 categories. A PC World survey of 23 computer manufacturers ranked Apple Number One in dependability and service.

There's plenty more information had you bothered to look for it! Instead, like some know-nothing TV talking head who spouts prefab conclusions regardless of the truth, you've taken the low road of journalism. You ought to be ashamed. Wired has lost my confidence.
Rick Kirschnerdrrickrnr@usa.net

Deadzoning
Lots of time and money spent developing a site; considerable time and effort spent trying to get people to stop by; oodles of coverage everywhere by Web psychologists (yawn) who have woven beautiful new theories on the science (ahem) of making people linger longer ("Reclaim the Deadzone," Wired 4.12, page 206). And then blam.
A nice big flashy invite at the top of the page entices the elusive viewer to go somewhere completely different. Kind of like putting nice big glossies in Wired saying, "Hey, Reader! Put down this magazine and go look at another one!" This problem has been ignored by most of the commercial sites I've seen.

In Tokyo, we have gone back to bartering for our Web ad space, tying up with specific traditional media on a space-for-space trade-off. That way, customers are not dragged away to new pastures every time they see an advertisement. Both brands gain from the tie-up - we get credit for being associated with Brand X; Brand X gets kudos for its digital acquaintance with us.
Christopher Wrightchristop@ozinter.co.jp

Thanks for the enlightening article on how advertisers are trying to come up with new ways to force-feed us with their messages. Hunter Madsen suggests that advertisers "add audio and animations, incorporate useful Java apps." But what about bandwidth? Madsen forgets one important point concerning Webvertising that advertisers may not be aware of: while content is increasing, bandwidth is stable, and more and more people just turn off graphics in their browsers.

I don't care about banner ads: I never see them!
Kirk McElhearnkirk@lenet.fr

Banner Banter
Joan Voight's "Beyond the Banner" (Wired 4.12,
page 196) on the subversion of Web editorial content by webvertising is very insightful but fails to acknowledge that this model has worked - and worked extremely well - in other media. Take sports coverage, in which broadcasters effectively work for the teams and leagues they "report" on.
Or news, where reporters are constrained by key advertisers.

Based on these examples, the American public has a great deal of tolerance for content tainted by commercial priorities. What it gets back is cheap content and/or a richness of choices unavailable anywhere else in the world.

Whether we like it or not, the market gets what the market wants. And the Web is no different.
Oliver Pflugoliver@sitecast.com

Gender Blunder
Just when you thought our tendency to stereotype was dwindling, Doug Glen ("Gender Blender," Wired 4.11, page 190) decides to enlighten Wired readers to the fact that boys and girls are born with little chips in their heads that make boys want to assert their power over the world and make girls want to be observable adults.

Michael Meloan asks Glen whether Mattel is reflecting sex roles in society or creating them. But they are the same thing! Infants are not born with sex roles. They reflect what we tell them.

Cyber Glen should realize he is not only exploiting children's early taught behaviors - he is shaping our society's sick sex roles.
Eric Michael Strausseric.stauss@internetmci.com

Reality Checkup
The misinformation spread by John Heilemann in his Netizen article "Reality Checklist" (Wired 4.12, page 53) makes me wonder to what drumbeat he and - by extension - Wired marches.

Heilemann's statement that "around half the federal budget goes for entitlement programs"is meant to mislead. Welfare, the most widely denounced entitlement, consumes less than 1 percent of the budget.

The notion that "for most of the period following the Second World War, the federal government played a central role in ending formal discrimination against blacks and integrating our public space" is an outright lie. Unlike the images in the film Mississippi Burning, the government fought the civil rights movement at every turn. Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy repeatedly ignored appeals for federal intervention, and forward-looking legislation was constantly filibustered in Congress. Eventually, motivated by Cold War fears of adverse international publicity, politicians were dragged - kicking and screaming - into doing the right thing.

I once expected Wired to be at the cutting edge, but it is a successful magazine now and has obligations.
George Baileyglyphics@bc.cybernex.net

Good Ol' Days
"Agoric Systems" (Wired 4.12, page 84) made me think that the Net times we live in may be (comparatively) better than we think.

Here's a story: My father grew up in the same California town I did. As a boy, he lived on a long, central street called Pacific Avenue. Though I knew Pacific as a major vehicular artery, teeming with high-octane traffic, my father remembers his mother telling him not to cross the street until he could look both ways and not see any cars. By the 1950s, this would have meant standing there all day and all night.

These could be the good old days of the Net that I'll tell my children about. When you click on a link, the server miraculously makes the connection. My children, knowing the Internet as a traffic-clogged thoroughfare in which timely links go to the highest bidder, will wonder whether
I'm making it up.
Robert Owens Scott IIscottnj@skylands.net

What in the AOL Is Going on Here?
You should be thanking your lucky stars that America Online is as successful as it is ("Keyword: Context," Wired 4.12, page 254). Would Wired be able to reach any audience if AOL, above all online services, hadn't raised awareness of the Net? How long can it remain a net.snob?

Think about it. Wired called AOL a dinosaur and, aside from the Mark Nollinger article ("America, Online!" Wired 3.09, page 158), has done nothing but bite the largest hand that feeds it. AOL had fewer than 600,000 subscribers in January 1994. Now it has more than 7 million. So, is the dinosaur big enough yet?

Get over it. At US$14.95 a month and a TCP/IP stream running, just relax and think of AOL as the ultimate national ISP.
David Lawrence
Host, Online Todaydavid@online-today.com

Precision Mousing Surface
I just received several machines, all without mousepads, and discovered that old copies of Wired, with its funky cover printed on that heavy stock, make a wonderful Precision Mousing SurfaceŞ.
Bob McWhirterbob@sitecraft.com

Undo

Born Again: There's been some confusion about the date of HAL's birth. The January 12, 1997, date printed on the cover of Wired 5.01, as well as the reference to HAL's instructor as Dr. Chandra, is based on Arthur C. Clarke's book 2001: A Space Odyssey. As explained in the accompanying article "Happy Birthday, HAL" (see page 124), Stanley Kubrick changed the date and the name for the film. I Before E ...: The correct spelling of the Portland, Oregon, ad agency handling The Microsoft Network's campaign ("Sign of the Times," Wired 5.01, page 40) is Wieden &AMP Kennedy. Syntax Error: Our chart of common HTML errors ("Web Grammar," Wired 4.12, page 82) included an error of its own; it should have read "Outer tags should be &LTHTML&GT ... &LT/HTML&GT."

Starry-Eyed: The holographic chess game mentioned in "Coming at You" (Wired 4.12, page 72) was played in Star Wars, not Star Trek.